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The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

nytimes.com

51–60 of 68 posts

Re: The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

#51

Largley because of a paralyzed legislative branch, heavily indebted to corporate donors, compounded by a polarized public that is largely too distracted to focus on this fundamental problem.

Plot twist: zooming out of the USA, you've just described most countries.

Incidentally, countries as a concept may greatly distract the so-fragmented public from many a no less fundamental problem...

Re: The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

#52
post #32

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) could not even protect the information of people with security clearances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management... Trey Gowdy's questioning of the people in charge of the OPM is a classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK-zEGjxuAA

The GOP is anti-government and spares no chance to demonstrate that. That doesn't forgive the failure, but instead of saying "let's fix it then", the answer is always: private enterprise!

Uhm, no. I'm anti-government; the GOP likes having the government erect monuments to their favored religion, spy on every US citizen, invade other governments to prop up the petrodollar, make it difficult for people to get abortions, etc.

The American left and right both support government invading different facets our private lives to varying degrees. Neither are anarchists, or anything close to it.

Re: The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

#53
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are any good you can afford food taster who work for you and die if the food was not good. If you are not good enough and are forced to work as a food taster, bad for you, but that's just survival of the fittest and will eventually make the human race stronger.

Lulzy parody. Here's an actual take: I would like to accept the risk of eating a pufferfish if I want to. If somebody wants to sell me a prepared pufferfish, and they haven't been authorized to do so by the government, I would like to make my own decision about whether I trust that person to prepare a pufferfish correctly. If I die from eating that pufferfish, I'm okay with that; I accepted the risk. I want the right…

A parody for sure, but apparently not as "lulzy" as you're making it out to be.

It's all well and good that you believe you have the faculty to distinguish improperly prepared fish from properly prepared fish, but many people do not, and improperly prepared fish will be sold cheaper than the prepared variety, which means that people who want fish but can't afford to pay much for it will be the ones buying the improperly prepared stuff. You can already see this at some level today when poorer people tend to buy a lot of junk food that's cheaper (speaking in terms of opportunity cost here too) than healthier alternatives, and a variety of other unhealthy things (cigarettes, alcohol).

I'm not saying unhealthy things should be banned, I'm saying that deadly things absolutely should be. If you want to take the risk of killing yourself (it's absolutely absurd that you mention this) then there are probably more fun ways to do it than arguing the government should allow people to sell potentially deadly food.

Even then, you've selected a weird subset of dangerous food - everyone knows pufferfish is dangerous, far fewer people know which specific compounds that may be in food sold in an unregulated food market can lead to cancers and other diseases in the long term. You need to ask what the advantage of an unregulated food market is outside of a very specific conception of freedom which entails "I should be able to do anything I want to and you can't stop me.", which is (1) not the only conception of freedom around (2) is unworkable in a society with rich and poor, educated and uneducated, critical and uncritical, disabled and able bodied, etc.

Re: The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

#54

Probably because the threat is relatively new. It took hundreds of thousands of deaths and decades to get us to the current mandated safety standards for cars. It’s going to take a while for tech to catch up.

And yet Churchill saw how Turing's work on Enigma was promising and gave him a lot of support. There are many other examples. Politicians are perfectly capable of understanding the social impact of technology... when they need to.

Churchill was not an ordinary politician

Re: The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

#55
post #32

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) could not even protect the information of people with security clearances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management... Trey Gowdy's questioning of the people in charge of the OPM is a classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK-zEGjxuAA

The GOP is anti-government and spares no chance to demonstrate that. That doesn't forgive the failure, but instead of saying "let's fix it then", the answer is always: private enterprise!

Other than Trey Gowdy being a member of the GOP, not sure what you're criticizing here. His line of questioning was not partisan, and got to the heart of the matter - their lack of competence and ability to follow regulations and/or written contracts.

The OPM had a serious data breach, and demonstrated a marked lack of ability to do their job. To date, they have not been held accountable, unless you count the stern questioning.

What remedy would you prescribe to fix OPM? How would you hold them accountable?

Re: The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

#56
post #5

Probably because the threat is relatively new. It took hundreds of thousands of deaths and decades to get us to the current mandated safety standards for cars. It’s going to take a while for tech to catch up.

Heck, most people in government simply don’t even understand the issue, let alone figuring out how to solve it. AFAIK only one US 2020 presidential candidate atm is even talking about data rights.

> AFAIK only one US 2020 presidential candidate atm is even talking about data rights.

Are you talking Yang [0]? I think he's taking it most seriously but even as a Yang Ganger I do see other politicians talking about it, but I would say that they aren't taking it seriously [1]. I can't find anything about data privacy rights on Warren's, Sanders's, or Biden's issue pages. I did find mentions on Buttigieg's[2], Klobuchar's[3], and Gabbard's[4] (which is more anti-NSA than anything else). But yeah, I would say that Yang is the only one that I'm aware of that is making a very clear statement on this issue (since he ties it to his UBI issue).

[0] https://www.yang2020.com/policies/data-property-right/

[1] https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/2020-democratic-candidates-i...

[2] https://peteforamerica.com/issues/#ConsumerProtections

[3] https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/consumer-p...

[4] https://www.tulsigabbard.org/tulsi-gabbard-on-civil-libertie...

Re: The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

#57
post #38
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't get where this type of ideaology comes from. There are plenty of countries with weak governments and not one of them is successful.

I think OP might have meant that weaker regulation/government is a necessary condition, not necessarily a sufficient one.

Then I would expect to see a counterexample to my point.

Re: The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

#58
post #6

Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well. Data is one area where humanity has made the fastest progress compared to Cars and Food.

>Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well.

This. Sure I would like some protection for our food but i hate the too much protection that currently US government has right now.

Re: The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

#59

Probably because the threat is relatively new. It took hundreds of thousands of deaths and decades to get us to the current mandated safety standards for cars. It’s going to take a while for tech to catch up.

The FDA was formed just years after the Jim the horse incident[0]. The issues from poor data practices has existed for a decade or more. It has more to do with the poor functioning of the political system these days. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_%28horse%29

Just after the Jim horse incident. Which was at a time when food and medicine adulteration was already old as the hills.

Re: The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lulzy parody. Here's an actual take: I would like to accept the risk of eating a pufferfish if I want to. If somebody wants to sell me a prepared pufferfish, and they haven't been authorized to do so by the government, I would like to make my own decision about whether I trust that person to prepare a pufferfish correctly. If I die from eating that pufferfish, I'm okay with that; I accepted the risk. I want the right…

A parody for sure, but apparently not as "lulzy" as you're making it out to be. It's all well and good that you believe you have the faculty to distinguish improperly prepared fish from properly prepared fish, but many people do not, and improperly prepared fish will be sold cheaper than the prepared variety, which means that people who want fish but can't afford to pay much for it will be the ones buying the imprope…

> It's all well and good that you believe you have the faculty to distinguish improperly prepared fish from properly prepared fish, but many people do not,

No, I don't believe that I neccessarily have that faculty. I just want to be able to bet on it anyway.

> and improperly prepared fish will be sold cheaper than the prepared variety, which means that people who want fish but can't afford to pay much for it will be the ones buying the improperly prepared stuff.

Yup. I remember my mom and dad arguing about whether it was okay to serve us rotten broccoli (she'd cut most of the rotten parts off, he only noticed because she missed some). I think that was something she'd done out of ignorance, and if she understood how bad it is to serve rotten broccoli she wouldn't have bought it even at a discount. I wish she had been better educated, but I don't wish that the government had enough power to uniformly enforce the food laws they already had in place. They were right in this case, but sometimes they're wrong. I've bought homemade food from some individuals that I trusted more than I trust the vast majority of government-licensed restaurants.

> You can already see this at some level today when poorer people tend to buy a lot of junk food that's cheaper (speaking in terms of opportunity cost here too) than healthier alternatives, and a variety of other unhealthy things (cigarettes, alcohol).

Uhh, yeah. Being poor sucks. People do drugs about it. You want to deny those who are denied everything else the solace of escapism?

> If you want to take the risk of killing yourself (it's absolutely absurd that you mention this) then there are probably more fun ways to do it than arguing the government should allow people to sell potentially deadly food.

This is both literally and figuratively a matter of taste. Why should your views of absurdity and fun affect my ability to enjoy a cullinary experience?

> Even then, you've selected a weird subset of dangerous food - everyone knows pufferfish is dangerous, far fewer people know which specific compounds that may be in food sold in an unregulated food market can lead to cancers and other diseases in the long term.

Yup, I selected an example that would clearly demonstrate my point. You caught me.

> You need to ask what the advantage of an unregulated food market is outside of a very specific conception of freedom which entails "I should be able to do anything I want to and you can't stop me.", which is (1) not the only conception of freedom around

I said I should be able to do anything I want to myself. I understand freedom-ofs and freedom-froms, you're welcome to share the word freedom with me. Just don't take my freedom of self destruction. It's an important one to me, whether or not you feel the same.

> (2) is unworkable in a society with rich and poor, educated and uneducated, critical and uncritical, disabled and able bodied, etc.

I'm just trying to eat a hypothetical pufferfish, maaaan. Yes, society has problems. No, that isn't a good reason to arrest me for buying or selling a fish. The most ridiculous laws you people make are the ones that make parts of nature illegal, like fish and flowers and fungi. Such oppression, much wow.

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